So I'm chipping away at a WIKI for a massive TTRPG world, and psychologically something interesting is going on. I've recently started reaching out for people to join as contributors. This is, not unexectedly, leading to me having big feelings.
A step back- my dream, my absolute pie-in-the-sky dream, would be to create something that takes root and grows organically, beyond my participation. In my dream reality, I create something akin to the Forgotten Realms, Star Wars or Barker's Tekumel, where a community of people get inspired to build on it, add to it, expand it, fight over what's canon and what isn't, create fan art, fanfiction and their own characters to inhabit the world, stretching out in all directions far beyond whatever I created to start it.

So totally no biggie, right?
Aside from the megalomaniacal, gradiose preposterousness of my hopes, there's the small matter of creating something that inspires people in the first place. It occurred to me a few months ago that, as unlikely as my dream is, it will remain even more unlikely if I don't BUILD A GODDAMN THING IN THE FIRST PLACE

So that got me to launch the Wiki in the first place, a bit of a journaling exercise where I dive in every few days and explore some rabbit-hole that inspires me, weaving links and details back into previous threads, trying to create something rich and inspiring. If nothing else, it has been a fun way to get my insanity written down in some form.
Anyway, that brings me to my big feelings. I've reached out to a fellow creative I met on Bluesky and they've been having fun fleshing out the cosmology of the realms. This has lead to the first big challenge, one I knew was coming, and knew was going to be a hurdle:

Yup, I'm learning at fifty-forfuckssake years old to share my creation- and honestly, I'm not sure what report card I'd give myself. I do catch myself having a knee-jerk reaction to say "that's not right" to a lot of ideas, and not always when I should. I can feel the tension I set up here- I invited other people to participate, and at the same time parts of this are a little too precious to me.

So I think I'll do a little work to define what's fair game and what I want to protect- after that, I'm going to really force myself to push this out to get more contributors on board.
Thanks for reading this little bit of self-indulgence: I promise, next post will describe the overall concept and my design philosophy, without me taking you along on a journey of sef-discovery.

Like a Phoenix from the Ashes, I arise again! (Or actually, I stop ignoring this blog)
So here's the thing: I've been working on a Wiki for a few months now, nailing down a ttrpg campaign world I've had knowcking around my cranium for decades now. The process has been an absolute blast, and if you're wired like I am where you can disappear for hours down endless Wiki rabbit holes, this is a great way to develop your world. Just the act of making a Wiki simultaneously lets you drill down into the minute details of your world, while giving you tools to tie it back to every ither aspect of your worldbuilding. Truly, I can't recommend it enough.

So the foundational notion of this world is that there are countless craters in the surface of an uninhabitable world, and life only exists in those craters. A bunch of different peoples (species) have evolved in these craters, unaware of each other's existence, each thinking they are the only life in existence.
The campaign is set roughly 50 years after first contact between two realms- the realms are simultaneously enjoying a renaissance and living through a global identity crisis. Pretty much everyone's faith has been proven factually wrong, yet prayer still works. Cultures that have never known a need for armies find themselves embroiled in conflicts in realms their parents never thought existed. Realms have found ruling dynasties that date back millennia overthrown in a matter of months, while new inventions, new social movements and new diseases spread in all directions.
One of the conceits of the Wiki is that it is written from its' own, internal perspective, as though the authors live in the realms. It's fun writing that way- the authors are not omniscient, and on some topics they're as baffled as anyone else. There's lots of "sages suspect.." and "legends say...", but for most of the big mysteries theres no definitive answer.
It popped into my head that I could revive this blog as a place I could step outside the realms to talk about design ideas, inspirations and things I'm struggling with (like is there any way to depict first contact between peoples without it simply becoming colonialism, for example). So that's what I'll be mostly using this for, with occasional forays into other gamer-y things I get up to.